Therapy: Part 2

I closed my eyes, and tried to remember all I’d learned so far. Right. So, I could clearly remember everything until I was about sixteen, seventeen. After that … I went to University, where I met Alison and … damn, the tall fellow. Was it Philip? Honestly, this was new information, I couldn’t even blame the amnesia. Alright, after that, I studied for an MA, and a doctorate after that. I returned to my home city, so that I could live near my father, and at the age of twenty-six, I became the youngest lecturer in the history of the local university’s prestigous psychology department – which was currently unfortunate, since I couldn’t remember the first thing about the subject – and I was with the department for the full six years leading up to the accident.

Alright, so that was the official biography. But what I mostly wanted to remember was what the stranger in the costume – Ten Thousand And One, he’d called himself – had told me.

So, here goes again.

When I became a lecturer, I’d already possessed telekinetic and empathic abilities for a year or so. Had I known this already? Hard to tell. At some point – a year later, in fact – I became a superhero called Grey Matter. I’d have been twenty-seven. A year and a half later – twenty-eight? Twenty-nine? – I gave up being a superhero, and wrote a lot of books. The most findings of the most recent book encouraged me to get a new costume, and become a supercounsellor called Therapy.

And the only one who knew of all this was this Ten Thousand And One fellow. Also costumed, but it seems that I never actually knew his identity, even before the accident.

Sleep now.

-10001-

I was ready for him when he arrived. I’d now decided on all the questions I wanted to ask.

“How do you know who I am?” I asked.

“I knew you as Felicity Goodman,” he said, not wasting words. “I didn’t realise you were Therapy until the accident. Realising that Therapy wouldn’t want her identity publicly known, I came to the scene immediately with a set of civilian clothes.”

I blushed. “You changed my clothes?”

Ten Thousand And One chuckled. “You were wearing plain skin-tight clothes under your outfit anyway,” he said. “Standard practice for superheroes, because if their costumes get torn, they hardly want to be standing around in their underwear.”

“I see,” I said, bemused.

He chuckled again. “So strange, telling you these things that you once knew so well – knew better than I do, in fact.”

“Alright,” I said, ready to move on. “So I – Felicity, not Therapy – know you.”

“Yes.”

“Do I know your identity?”

“No. Even as Felicitiy, you knew me as Ten Thousand And One.”

“And why are you called Ten Thousand And One?”

“It’s what everyone else called me,” he said. “I just wanted to stay out of the limelight, but it seems that that’s a good recipe to becoming an enigma. It’s easier now to introduce myself by that number.”

“And why that number?”

He chuckled. “I should have given you more credit. I thought it’d be days before you just asked outright.” He became momentarily serious. “But I’m afraid I’m not going to tell you. And not to be cool and enigmatic either – it’s just a number, and barely means a thing, so don’t get it into your head that there’s an exciting revelation behind it. But this is part of a test – I need you to remember this without being told, and when you do, we’ll hopefully be a step closer to learning more.”

“More about what?”

“Ah,” he said. “That’s the thing. Your accident, you see – we don’t know what it was.”

“You don’t know?”

“I assume someone attacked you, but since you were disguised as Therapy at the time, the police won’t be able to do much. So this is my own private project.” He chuckled. “And I’m a busy man. It’s unprecedented for me to spend so much time working on a single problem.”

“Are you a detective?”

“No.”

“Not your badge number or anything, then?”

“No.”

I found it difficult to talk. I wanted to know more. It felt as though great swathes of my personality were missing. How had I become a lecturer? The last thing I remembered about my academic life was copying my friend’s homework because I hadn’t done my own. How had little Felicity Goodman become an esteemed lecturer of psychology?

And there was another paradox. I felt like a thirty-two-year-old woman, but my most recent memories – apart from the hospital – belonged to a teenager. How could it feel so recent and so distant at the same time?

I realised that I hadn’t asked a number of questions I’d wanted answering.

“Why did I give up superheroism?” I asked.

“It was getting in the way of your work,” said Ten Thousand And One. “You realised that your dream had been to get your work published, and to make a real difference to your field.”

Presumably, I thought, being Therapy didn’t get in the way of that.

“Hang on, though,” I said. “I thought you didn’t realise that Therapy was even me. How do you know so much about my superhero career?”

“Piecing together different things you’ve told me over the years,” he said. “A lot of things slotted into place when I took off your mask. But for the purpose of finding whoever did this to you, I’ve called in a lot of favours.” He smiled. “I’m owed a LOT of favours.”

The words sound creepy by themselves, but the way he said it was so warm. After how much he’d done to help me – to the extent of calling in favours of his own to help me remember – I could easily imagine that a lot of people were in his debt.

“So, how does this Therapy thing work?” I asked. “Support groups?”

“Partly,” said Ten Thousand And One. “But you also visited schools and even borstals. You have a private phone to accept calls on Therapy’s behalf. I’ve taken the liberty of announcing that you’re on extended leave at the moment.”

“And you said that nobody knows that I’m Therapy. Did anyone know I was Grey Matter?”

“Not as far as I know,” he said. “But naturally, they’d have kept this a secret. A fair few people know that Grey Matter and Therapy are one in the same, however.”

I paused as I tried to remember if I had any more questions lined up.

Ah, yes.

“Where do I live?” I sounded like a little girl.

“A flat in the Leavesden area,” he said gently. “You’ve been saving up for a house.”

“Am I getting close?” I asked.

“You’re getting there.”

“Is it a nice flat?”

“It’s a lovely flat.”

“Tell me about it.”

And in his soft, gentle tones, Ten Thousand And One described my flat. I listened intently, basking in every detail. I closed my eyes. Eventually, I heard him leave, and I fell asleep.